General FAQs

Making a long story short, the campuses across Montana wanted to create a more-seamless user experience for faculty and students moving between campuses. By making the move to a unified LMS, we can share more resources, decrease confusion and frustration, lower costs, and maybe even achieve World Peace. That last one's a long shot, but we're willing to give it a try.

Though D2L was one of the finalists, it was not selected in the end, and so we move on.

Canvas is the new D2L, or at least new to us. It handles all your online course needs, from learner management to electronic grading, and everything inbetween. The only thing it doesn't do is fold your laundry. Or wash your laundry. Or dry your laundry.

We wouldn't trust it to feed your pets either. Otherwise, you're good to go.

From the MUS: In November 2021, the Board of Regents charged the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education to work with campuses to identify a single Learning Management System (LMS) vendor for the Montana University System.  In Spring of 2022, an Advisory and Steering Committee was formed, consisting of faculty, staff, students and administrative leadership from across the system. This group conducted a needs analysis, which informed a request for proposals that launched in late Spring of 2023.

During the summer of 2023, vendor proposals were scored by a team of IT professionals, LMS administrators, and faculty. From this process, two vendors (D2L and Instructure) were invited to move forward to a demonstration phase, where a 14 member panel scored the two finalists on the faculty and student experience, their administrative, IT and analytics capabilities, and course migration fidelity.  Additional factors that were evaluated at this stage were cost and company profiles.  At the end of this process, Instructure (Canvas), emerged with a clear consensus.

The impacts will be many, and will vary a lot based on how much each instructor used D2L before, and in what capacity. All instructors will see increased student familiarity with the LMS, a simplified workflow, and a greater ability to share content and tips with faculty from across the state.

That being said, the transition process will have some hiccups for heavier users, as Canvas doesn't do everything that D2L does in the same ways. There will be some new tools to learn, and new ways of using the old tools, which is why we'll be holding a plethora of training over the upcoming school year and beyond. Check out our event schedule for the latest information on upcoming live workshops, or feel free to peruse our collection of self-paced trainings instead.

A difficult question to answer. While Canvas will certainly be different than D2L, the two aren't so different that many students will notice much after the initial transition period. The main benefits to students are consistency and expanded support across the MUS system, along with access to the new accessibility features we'll have in Canvas. Outside of that, the impact will largely depend on how well each student adapts to change.

If you're looking for tutorials, answers about functionality, and general Canvas "stuff" (technical term), then read on below, or check out more of the pages on this site.

If you're looking for more information on the decision process, you can check out the MUS site on the transition, or contact Dr. Sue Balter-Reitz (susan.balterreitz@msubillings.edu).

Yes. Canvas offers not just one, or two, but THREE different mobile apps for both iOS and Android devices. Depending on your what your needs and official role are, you'll want to search for "Canvas Student", "Canvas Teacher", or "Canvas Parent" in your app store, or you can check out the links below.

There are two answers to that question.

The first is that you'll find the Canvas login here. Please log in responsibly.

To log in, use your msubillings.edu email address for your username, and the same password you use for D2L; no additional setup required!

Please note that students do not and will not have access to Canvas until at least Summer of 2025, so if they're having login issues with Canvas, that would be why.

 

The second is that you can access Canvas through a web browser on any device with internet access, or in the apps we listed above.

Until the end of the Spring 2025 semester, instructors will have full access to both D2L and Canvas. Students will not have access to Canvas until the transition to Canvas is completed, so please keep that in mind.

Long story short, quite well. While the basic Canvas includes some accessibility tools that D2L doesn't have, we'll also be getting access to an additional accessibility tool that integrates seamlessly with Canvas called YuJa Panorama. Panorama not only helps instructors build more-accessible content, but it also provides over a dozen alternate formats for students on-demand, includes powerful analytics tools, and more. Look forward to more information on it coming soon!

Yes. Canvas is fully compliant with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). If you're looking for things like encryption information, you'll want to take that line of questioning to the Canvas Security page, because they do a much better summary than we can put here.

Wouldn't you like to know. Well, luckily, you can find out how to do just about anything on our brand-new Canvas Help page. See you there.

Then feel free to contact the CTL, where all your dreams will come true. Or, at the very least, where we can get you some answers.

If you'd like, you can call us at (406)657-2112.

If you prefer email: for technical questions, please email msubonline@msubillings.edu. For other issues, please email ctl@msubillings.edu.

You can also submit a ticket, just make sure not to submit any concert tickets. Those can go directly to Tyr Hawkaluk, CoE 332, tyr.hawkaluk@msubillings.edu.